


a flame in a dark room

by halfeatenmoon



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pining, Post-TLJ, Presumed Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-30 03:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14487876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/pseuds/halfeatenmoon
Summary: Poe comes home. Then he runs away again.





	a flame in a dark room

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outruntheavalanche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/gifts).



“General,” Poe said, with his heart in his throat, “I want you to send me out in the field again. Alone.”

The General didn’t move quickly or sharply. Shock looked different on her; there was only a slight stiffening of her posture, and the way she looked up from her screen just a second more quickly than she normally would. The silence was the big giveaway, though. It felt like she was scrutinising him for a long, long time before she spoke.

“If by ‘alone’ you mean that you’re leaving BB-8 behind again, then request denied,” she said, at last. “You wouldn’t believe how inconsolable he was when you were missing for a year. I’m surprised he let you out of his sight long enough to meet me alone.”

“Oh no, of course I’d take BB. He wouldn’t let me leave him behind again. I just meant, I know you’ve been keeping me off the solo missions recently but I need something. I need...” He stopped for a moment, unsure whether it was wise to tell her everything. But there was no other way to explain why he wanted this so badly. “I need to get out of here for a while.”

He breathed a sigh of relief when she said, “Yes, I understand.”

“Thank you, General.”

“The problem is, I don’t have a lot to give you right now. I don’t have any solo jobs, and I can’t afford to send anyone on non-critical missions right now. But there’s a job for two fighters coming up in a couple of days, assisting an independent resistance effort out on Erebor. It’s a long way from here.”

It wasn’t ideal, but it would do. “Send me out alone today. I’ll lay low and scout ahead until you can send backup.”

The General watched him, carefully. “Is there something else I could do to help? You’re very eager to go.”

Poe stiffened. “Only in the service of the Resistance. I’m not running.”

“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” she replied. “Are you really okay after the ordeal you went through? A year is a long, long time to be stranded. We’d all understand if you had some trouble adjusting.”

The thought of the General’s doubt was like ice through his veins. “Has my work not been good enough? Because I swear if you just gave me some pointers I’d fix anything I’m doing.”

“Your work has been exemplary as always. I know you’d never think of running. I know how much the Resistance means to you. But Poe, if it’s hard to adjust to being back among so many people again, there are ways we can help you other than just running away.”

Poe could follow the General’s thinking. She wasn’t entirely wrong, either. Some things were comforting after being shipwrecked for a year, like having other people around and a real bed, and BB-8 by his side again, but others were offputting. It was strange being around big groups of people; he found himself gravitating towards the wall in meetings and in parties. He didn’t feel entirely like he belonged any ore. It’s just these were all things he could manage; they paled to nothing next to the way he felt whenever he saw Rey and Finn together.

“Do you trust me to tell you if I’m really having a bad time?”

She hesitated before she said yes. The important thing was that she said it.

 

 

Finn never got time to make many memories with Poe. He held on tight to the ones he had.

For five glorious weeks after the battle of Crait, Finn got to spend every single day with Poe. He was already one of the most important people in Finn’s life before the battle, but it was still a friendship made up of snatched conversations between moments of heartstopping peril. After Crait… well, it wasn’t as though the peril stopped, but now there were hours and hours between the pockets of danger. Time to sleep, time to talk. Time to fall in love.

(Finn wasn’t sure he needed the time to fall in love. He was pretty sure he was in love with Poe the moment his saw him across the airfield on D’Qar, alive and running towards him like Finn was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen.)

Still, it was after one of those moments of heartstopping peril that Poe kissed him. They’d scouted out a potential new base and made home there for a whole two days before they came under attack. Finn was out in the forest, foraging, and had gone to ground when the attack began, hoping as always that the First Order wouldn’t find him. He hoped he knew stormtroopers enough to avoid them finding him. The troopers didn’t find him, but the Resistance did. As soon as they were away into hyperspace, Poe tumbled out of the Falcon’s gunner seat and into Finn’s arms, their lips crashing together like they were the only two people in the world and not surrounded by smirking comrades.

“Sorry,” Poe said, sheepishly. “I wanted the first time to be different to this.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. I’m covered in grease and sweat and I probably smell terrible.”

Finn snorted. He traced his hand down Poe’s arm until he found his fingers, and squeezed. “I’ve been digging around in the dirt all day. And some of those plants have spikes! Did you know that? My clothes are full of spikes, Poe. I probably spiked you while we were kissing.”

“Don’t care,” Poe said, with a beaming, stupid grin, and Finn had to kiss him again.

They had five weeks together for stealing every moment they could together, finding each other between missions, holding each other through the night until it was the last night they’d ever have. And then one day, it was.

They’d obtained three X-wing fighters by then, in addition to the Falcon, shared between whichever pilots were available for a mission. Poe always volunteered, unless he was falling-over tired. One day, he and BB-8 just didn’t come back. Finn spent long nights awake, with Rey staying up to hug him for as long as she could before she succumbed to sleep and left Finn awake in the dark.

People told him to have hope, Poe might still be out there, but Finn had never seen someone come back from the dead. Stormtroopers never returned, not once; when your comrade went missing, they were gone forever. You just had to hold them in your heart, pretend to be normal, and move on. It was a little different here, because the Resistance wanted you to remember the fallen instead of forget, and he could get behind that even if he couldn’t hope. Months later, when they found BB-8 drifting in a wrecked ship, they held a memorial service, finally taking the droid’s scrambled testimony as proof that Poe was probably gone. So Finn mourned, and he moved on.

Moving on was working harder, and getting used to BB-8 following at his heels instead of Poe’s. It was trying to fly, but finding that his generalist training from the First Order was more useful to the Resistance right now, and realising that he actually _liked_ working on first aid and on foraging parties when they were too short of funds to buy food. It was sleeping through the night again, and the way that sleeping by Rey’s side felt just as comforting as sleeping with Poe had been.

It was waking up one morning while Rey was still asleep and just watching her, realising that she was just a much a light in his life as Poe was, she always had been. It was feeling so overwhelmed when she opened her eyes and smiled at him that he just had to kiss her. Moving on was letting go, and letting himself love Rey just as much as he’d ever loved Poe. Which was terrifying; Rey was a pilot too, and they were all renegades, and every time she took off on a mission, Finn wondered whether this was the last time he’d see her, too. But so far, she always came back. Every time she walked off the Falcon and hugged him tightly, he felt himself pulled from his drifting nervousness and back to solid ground.

For Finn, moving on was loving Rey as fiercely as he had ever loved anyone. But it was also never forgetting the way it had felt to love Poe. He used to be so good at forgetting fallen troopers, but Poe was something different. Poe’s kisses were the first that ever set him on fire, and he held onto those memories as hard as he could.

 

 

Rey never got to know Poe very well. There was a certain intimacy that came with all being crammed on the Falcon together, sure, but she didn't have a lot of time to get to know him before he disappeared. She learned more about him from the speeches at his memorial service, huddled around a funeral pyre with no body, than she learned from Poe himself. The things she had always been clear on were that Poe was an excellent pilot, and a good man. And that he was in love with Finn.

Which is why, when the General called Rey to her office and told her they'd gotten word that Poe was alive, the first thing she said was "What can I do to help?"

"Plenty. We'll need to send a party out to get him, but we don't know how he's doing or what shape he's in."

"Send me. If the Force can help, I'll do it."

"Okay. We will." The General smiled. "I'm glad you're so eager to help. I was worried, given your closeness with Finn... well..."

Rey felt a pang of doubt at that, too. "Finn loves me, too." she said, firmly. "And he misses Poe all the time. So it'll be good to have him back. For Finn."

"Okay then. Just remember that things might be complicated."

"We get Poe back first. Then we figure out the rest."

 

 

There were a lot of things that kept Poe going while he was stranded. His dad, his friends, the General. Crushing the First Order. He was in this to save the galaxy. He wasn't going to give up on it just because was trapped on a backwater moon with no way to contact anyone.

The thing that kept him going in the darkest nights was the memory of Finn. He missed a lot of things about a lot of people; the General’s confidence, the comforting smell of his dad’s woollen coat, the way he never had a chance to really get to know Rey before he was shot down in action and stranded on an Outer Rim planet so uninteresting and sparsely populated that neither the Republic nor the First Order cared enough to claim it. He missed nothing so much, though, as the feel of Finn’s body against his, the feel of Finn’s kiss and his caresses and the sound of his voice. In the darkest nights, when it took everything he had to get enough food and water to survive until the next day and had to forego even a fire, it was thinking of Finn that got him through the night. Thinking of the day, one day, when he’d see a ship in the sky and they’d take him home, and he’d take Finn in his arms once again and never let him go.

The most amazing thing was that it came true. He’d almost stopped looking, resigning himself to a life of solitude in the wilderness of this godforsaken moon and living on tubers and fish and just hoping someone stumbled upon him before he died of old age. And yet one morning he found himself running through the trees with no care at all for the branches flicking and scratching at him, as long as he could meet the Millennium Falcon in the place where it landed. When he burst out of the trees they were there waiting for him, better than even in his fantasies. BB-8, barrelling across the ground at full speed and running over his toes in excitement; Rey, looking relieved and proud; Chewbacca roaring his triumph; and Finn.

Finn.

The rest of the world disappeared as soon as Poe reached him. He’d spend ten times as long fantasising abotu touching Finn again than they’d actually spent together. When he grasped at Finn’s shoulders, the soft leather of his jacket and the warmth of his body, it felt too real to be real. Poe just held at him and didn’t let go, took in the weight and the warmth and the smell of him, the softness of his skin where Poe pressed his face against Finn’s neck and murmured a garbled string of ‘I missed you’ and ‘I love you’, until it finally stopped feeling like a dream.

Poe didn’t think too much of the way Finn pulled away from their embrace just a little sooner than Poe was ready for. They did have to get back to the Resistance as soon as they could, and Poe had a lot of questions to ask. Besides, he probably smelled terrible. It didn’t matter when Finn couldn’t take his eyes off him, couldn’t stop looking at Poe as if this was the best thing he’d ever seen.

It was only when they were on their way back through hyperspace that Poe realised things had changed. Drastically. He’d cleaned himself off as best he could in the Falcon’s onboard sonic fresher, a cursory clean but still the cleanest he’d been in a very long time. The effort of getting clean and the excitement of discovery had worn him out, and he was bundled up in blankets on the bench in the lounge, almost asleep after Finn had sat there stroking his hair for half an hour and only gotten up to talk to Rey.

Poe was so close to sleep; Finn and Rey’s conversation made a comforting soundtrack that was lulling him even deeper into sleep. He only opened his eyes a fraction when the conversation came to a stop. That was when he saw them kiss; not a friendly kiss, but fierce, passionate. Possessive, For both of them.

He was home, Poe knew, as he finally succumbed to a restless sleep. He was home, and that was good. But home was going to be very different than what it used to be.

 

Finn spent a lot of his life preparing for the worst. His future options used to be limited to:

1\. Keep being a stormtrooper;

2\. Die.

At times, it was hard to tell which of these was the worst, but Finn was prepared for either one. Even when Poe helped him steal a TIE fighter and Rey hauled him into the Falcon and onwards to the stars, and his options opened up like never before, he was still, always, prepared for the worst. It was how he survived losing Poe.

The problem with not having hope, he now realised, was that you weren’t remotely prepared for the best.

He was happy with Rey, he really was. He loved her as much as he’d ever loved Poe, and perhaps he always had. She was his new reality, and Poe had been a memory, and that was all he could ask for. Except Poe was back and part of his reality again, too. A wonderful, joyous reality, having Poe back in his life again. Except it felt like a fragile kind of joy. He never thought to wonder what would happen to him and Rey, or to him and Poe, if one day Poe came back. And now, here he was.

Here his how Finn managed it: he spent his nights with Rey, curled around her in sleep, his bare skin against hers. They had privacy now that the Resistance had a home base and was building up its forces. In the mornings, they got up and dressed and kissed, and went out into the rest of the base, still busy and getting busier as they kept recruiting. Then, after the morning briefing, Rey usually took off on a flight mission or a Jedi training session, and Finn turned to working on whatever needed work around the base - helpfully accompanied by Poe, still grounded until they decided he’d recovered enough from the malnutrition and exposure of a year spent stranded. He’d spend most of the day with Poe by his side, telling each other everything that had happened while they’d been apart.

“So you and Rey, huh?” Poe asked one day, too casually.

Finn sucked in a breath. He’d been waiting for this. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s not like I didn’t miss you, I missed you _so much_ , it’s just I was so sure you weren’t coming back, and…”

“It’s okay, buddy,” Poe said, still with that too-casual smile. “I understand. She makes you happy?”

Finn couldn’t keep a shy smile off his face. “Yeah. She’s amazing.”

“She is. I could always see that. I was sorry I didn’t get a chance to get to know her better. I’m glad I get to do that, now.”

“So you’re not angry that we… that I have someone else? That we’re not like we used to be?” Finn felt a bit too hot, a little dizzy. He didn’t know how this was supposed to go.

Poe laughed. “Finn, I’m just happy that I get to see you again, and that you’re happy. Things change, we all move on sometimes. I probably will too. I’m alive, and you’re alive, and we’re both here. That’s what matters.”

It should have made things easier, hearing that. It should have been a load off his shoulders. Instead, Finn couldn’t stop staring at Poe’s mouth, remembering what it felt like to kiss him, and feeling oddly bereft. When he thought Poe was dead, he could be at peace with the thought of never kissing him again. With Poe here, alive and happy, that ‘never again’ felt devastating.

Finn tried his best to make sense of this new way of living with them both, though. Waking up with Rey in the mornings. Talking with Poe in the day. Lying down with Rey at night, feeling overwhelmed by her love, and wishing he could just appreciate it instead of thinking of Poe as well.

They were like two opposing gravity wells, keeping Finn locked in orbit. He could get used to this orbit, he thought, for all that it was uncomfortable. But it felt unstable. It felt like the wrong move could knock him right out of his centre of gravity, sending him spinning out into the void.

 

 

Rey feels like she would like Poe a lot more if he were still the one flying out on missions, and she were the one staying back on base with people who were grounded. If she were the one who got to spend all day with Finn, instead of risking her life in outer space while they were warm and safe back home.

“You could always get yourself stranded,” Chewbacca said one day, when she let a complaint slip out. “Or get your spine cut in half, maybe. Then Finn would definitely be by your bedside all day.”

“I don’t… I’m not… that’s not what I mean,” she said, trying to ignore the embarrassed flush at the back of her neck. “It’s just, he was only confined to bed for like, a day! I don’t know why Finn still needs to dote on him all the time.”

“Is that what they do? I thought Finn was pretty busy every day.”

Finn was busy. He was a medic, a cook, a cleaner and a quartermaster. Sometimes a recruiter. Sometimes even a mechanic, when Rose couldn’t handle the surviving Resistance’s load on her own, which was often.

“He is. I’m sure Poe’s with him a lot, though. They’re always together when I get home.”

Chewbacca shrugged, which meant the conversation was over. Sometimes that habit was annoying; he’d always listen to her, but he’d cut the conversation off abruptly as soon as he was tired of it. Rey liked the way he was so upfront, though, and even now she had to grudgingly respect the way he made her stop stewing in her jealousy and focus on flying. Which is what she did, most of the time. She was here for the Resistance, and for Finn. That was what mattered the most. Not the fact that she was out in space, risking her life and missing her boyfriend, while he worked back home with his ex.

It wasn’t fair that she was so jealous. She knew that, which was why the only person who heard about it was Chewbacca. She loved Finn and wanted him to be happy, and he _was_ happier now that Poe was back. Up until they found him, Finn had stopped talking about how much he missed Poe, but Rey could tell. It was hard to miss the sadness that even he couldn’t hide. Of course she’d leapt at the chance to get Poe back.

When Poe was gone, though, Rey never had to think about how much Finn loved him. Now, she couldn’t _stop_ thinking about it. Finn didn’t say anything about leaving her and going back to Poe, and showed no sign of it, either. He still loved her. It’s just that when she walked back into base, exhausted from flying all day, and saw Finn and Poe laughing together, it was hard to sit down and join them. She didn’t want to keep breaking their happy moment by sitting down and telling them how hard it was, that she didn’t know how to carry the weight of being the last remaining Jedi, that every time she flew out there she was afraid she’d never come back.

Rey got into this situation because she wanted Finn to be happy. The catch was that she wanted Finn to be happy with her, and she wondered whether really, right now, he was happier with Poe. She wasn’t about to step aside and give up the best thing that had ever happened to her, though. So she waited, and kept her feelings to herself, and quietly waited for the day that Poe was ready to fly again, too, and hoped that would take things back to normal.

 

This is stupid, Poe thought. Finn and Rey are together. He had Finn, and now he doesn't any more. It's as simple as that. Except that Finn was there with him, every day, making space for Poe next to him as he worked, no matter what he was doing. Except for when Rey was around, they were inseperable. When Finn looked at him, it was just like it was before the crash - like Poe lit up Finn's world. Every time, it brought back all the familiar memories of their time together. It felt like it would be the easiest and the most natural thing in the world for Poe to lean over and kiss him. That's what Poe used to do every time he saw that look on Finn's face.

Except now, there's Rey.

Poe was in awe of her - he had been before he was stranded, and she was no less amazing after another year of Force training and resistance fighting. Having lived alone and fended for himself for a year, he was even more appreciative of the way Rey had done the same thing since she was _five years old_. And then to wield such power, to face down Kylo Ren twice and live to tell it? Poe admired her the way he admired nobody but the General.

It becomes easier to respect their relationship for Rey’s sake than it is for Finn’s. Rey is honest about what she wants, in a way, and she keeps her distance, and as much as he wants Finn, Poe has no trouble wanting Rey to have what she needs, too.

The danger is in the way Finn never stops looking at him like Poe is something he wants, desperately. They don’t see each other as much now that Poe’s started joining work crews too, but that just makes it even more intense, with more times a day that Poe gets to watch Finn’s face light up when he meets Poe’s eyes, so full of love that Poe sometimes wants to look away.

It all came to a head when Poe found himself in a position he would have avoided if he’d had the chance. Lying in a meadow in the afternoon sun was too romantic an activity to share with your ex, and he knew it. He just happened to come across a lovely grove of flowers towards the end of his foraging shift, and since he’d already met his quota, it would be a waste not to lie down and close his eyes to the sunlight until he was due back at base. He just didn’t have the heart or the sense to leave when he felt another body flop down in the grass beside him. He knew it was Finn. He knew how beautiful Finn would look next to him in the afternoon light, and how hard it would be not to fall in love with him a little bit more.

“We picked a good place to settle,” Finn said, stretching his arms out in the grass, above his head.

Poe couldn’t resist taking in the sight of him for a moment, and Finn caught his eyes. Poe looked away. Finn didn’t.

“Settled for as long as we can, anyway,” Poe said, staring up at the sky. “It’s good. I never got to settle in here like it was home, but I missed it when I was away.”

He heard Finn roll over on his side. Poe still couldn’t meet his eyes.

“It’s been a year,” Finn said, his voice sounding too close.

“Like I said, settled for a while. A year is a long time in a war. We’re on borrowed time now.” There were only a few clouds in the sky, thin and wispy, slowly changing shape as they drifted. It seemed like and endless moment, even though the cloud shapes were fleeing.

“That’s what I’m afraid of, though. Borrowed time.”

Poe could feel Finn’s breath on his cheek, now. He wrestled with himself for a long moment as he turned his head towards Finn, their noses brushing together, so close he could feel Finn’s body heat in the air between their lips. Poe had been tortured by Kylo Ren, and he still felt like this was true torture, too. To be this close, and still be the kind of man who would put a hand on Finn’s chest, pull his head away and say “Rey,” before he got up and walked away.

His hands were shaking and his chest hurt and he wanted so much that he didn’t trust himself to walk away from Finn next time. And yet he had to; for Finn, and for Rey, and for a tiny army that was the only thing standing between the free people of the galaxy and the First Order. They were still so close to being wiped out, even after a year of rebuilding, and he didn’t know whether they could take the scandal of two Resistance icons fighting over a third.

That’s why Poe walked himself straight into the General’s office and said, “I want you to send me out in the field again.”

It’s not that Rey wanted to see Poe, exactly. Definitely not. It’s just that she got home from a flight late in the evening, and Finn was working a late shift too, and it’s… noticeable that he isn’t there. She tried sitting in the common room on her own, darning some of her clothes and checking her staff over for chips, but her eyes kept drifting to the slowly-deflating beanbag where he usually sat in the evenings, playing with BB-8 and swapping stories with anyone who’ll listen. She hasn’t seen BB-8 around, either, which was even more concerning.

“Have you seen Poe?” she asked, out loud, to the workers scattered around the room.

Rose had been sitting on the floor, fiddling with her own pet project, an even smaller astromech droid. Rey had tried working on it with her at times, but she felt too keyed up to help with anyone else’s projects tonight. Rose looked up instantly at her question, with a frown.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“He’s on mission again. He took off today for a long term mission. I primed his X-wing and everything this morning.”

“Long term?” Rey was frozen, staring into space, her mouth on autopilot. “Is he going to be okay?”

“I don’t think that’s a question for me.”

“I mean, he… where…” Rey had to stop, and tried desperately to organise her thoughts. “Is he, uh, is the planet survivable? What if he’s stranded again?”

“I stocked his ship with rations, Rey. And currency. It’s an inhabited planet. He’ll be okay.”

This was what Rey wanted, wasn’t it? Poe was gone, solo. If Finn didn’t know, he would soon. Things would go back to the way they used to be for a while, except even better because this time they wouldn’t be grieving a presumed-dead Poe Dameron. But her eyes still kept drifting to the place where Poe usually sat, and remembering how much better Finn had been since Poe was around. And the way that on the rare occasions that they sat down and talked, Poe hung on her every word like she was one of the most important people he’d ever met, and every word she said was gold.

Rey stood up abruptly, so fast that she almost dropped her staff and it clattered loudly against her chair.

“You okay there?” Rose asked, looking up with alarm.

“Yes,” Rey said, grimly. “I just need to find Finn. And the General. And then get on my ship.”

 

Poe was settling in. He’d hidden his X-wing in the mountains, scouted out the nearby town and gathered what he could from the market. He’d set up a comfortable camp at the foot of the mountains for his first night, with a small tent and a fire, and BB-8 burbling beside him. The solitude was a little lonely, but it was familiar, too, and there was some comfort in camping alone in a forest again. His lost year hadn’t been all bad; this way he got to enjoy the good parts without the hopelessness and malnutrition.

Another thing that took him back in time was staring up at the stars above his campfire and seeing the Millennium Falcon cruising overhead.

Last time this had happened, he was more excited than he’d ever been in his life. They’d been here to save him. This time, Poe watched the ship circling lower with a growing dread. For one ridiculous moment, he thought he was going to run, but it was far too late for that - they’d clearly spotted him, and there was no escaping now. As the Falcon landed, Poe hoped that maybe Finn was still back home, at least. But before the Falcon’s ramp had even hit the ground, Finn was running down, wrapping Poe in a hug, his head buried in Poe’s shoulder.

Poe stiffened, completely still, his arms at his sides. But Finn didn’t let go, and Poe slowly relaxed, closing his eyes and holding Finn close to him, too. He only stopped when he heard a sigh from right next to him. He opened his eyes and turned away to see Rey standing there, watching them, with her hands clenched at her sides.

“We need to talk,” Rey said, grimly. “Poe, you and I…”

They were interrupted by a roar from Chewbacca, and Poe started. He hadn’t even noticed him there. Chewie nodded to him, curtly, then sat down by the fire and started eating the rest of Poe’s dinner.

“Yeah, okay, help yourself,” Poe said, dryly. He breathed in, and then breathed out again, heavily, looking at Finn and Rey. “So, should we sit down?”

Rey dragged over a few more rocks for them to sit on, and they were all seated around the fire soon enough. Now Poe didn’t know how this conversation was supposed to start. He wanted to know why they were here, but of course the General sent them; she must have thought Poe would be happier with friends around, or something. He wished now that he’d told her why he really wanted to get away.

“I don’t know why you left,” Rey began, “But I’m guessing it has something to do with us.”

“I mean, I think I know,” Finn said. Rey looked at him for a moment, then turned her eyes to the ground.

“Yeah, I do know.”

Poe rubbed his hands on his thighs, nervously. “So I guess you talked about the, uh, the chat that Finn and I had there in the meadow.”

Finn nodded, grimly. “We did. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it,” Poe said.

“I’m sorry I never really talked about me and Rey.”

“Okay, cool, we’re all sorry,” Rey said impatiently. “Look, I don’t like it. But I also don’t like Poe running away, and Finn being sad. So we have to get better at this.”

She was hunched over, her elbows resting on her knees, but she looked up from the ground and met Poe’s eyes, now, staring right through him.

“So you thought you’d come and join me here?” Poe sighed, and ran his hands through his hair. “I left because I didn’t want to get between the two of you. Because you deserve to be happy. And I didn’t know if I could help myself when I know that Finn, uh…”

“He loves you,” Rey said, softly, eliciting an embarrassed grunt from him. “He loves you, and me, and you and I both love him, so there must be a way to make this work.”

“But it’s okay if you don’t want to,” Finn said, in a rush. “I know you were worried about this and we don’t want to make you uncomfortable, and if being with me when I’m also with Rey still makes you unhappy then we won’t. Or Rey, if it makes you sad… we’ll just see what happens.”

Poe looked between the two of them. “It seems like you cooked up a plan on the way over here, but I’m not entirely sure what it is.”

Rey rolled her eyes and stood up. She took both of their hands and hauled them upright, too, so they were all standing in a close-knit circle by the fire. “I’m saying that the two of you should kiss, already.”

She let go of Poe’s hand to push on his shoulder, nudging him towards Finn. It was enough to put him off balance, and he reached out instinctively, steadying himself against Finn. Their eyes met and Poe thought, was he really going to do this? Long-held memories of all the times they’d kissed before made it seem like such a small distance to breach. But he’d been fighting so hard to hold himself back, that kissing Finn, the _permission_ to kiss Finn, didn’t seem real.

He could see the same hesitation in Finn’s eyes. But then Rey made another impatient noise, and Poe could see the determination in Finn’s eyes. All it took was for Finn to lean forward, pressing his lips so lightly against Poe’s, and Poe surged forward. He kissed Finn hungrily, over and over again, exploring every familiar detail of Finn’s mouth that he’d missed so much, every part of it just as wonderful as he remembered. He only stopped when he heard a noise from Rey, a broken sigh like suppressed gasp of pain.

“Good,” she said, softly, when they broke apart. She was holding her arms around her body, like she was hugging herself. “Took you long enough.”

Poe has always been in awe of Rey, but never as much as in this moment. None of this was easy; it didn’t fix everything, pushing him and Finn back together. But he loved her so much for being willing to try. He held out a hand to Rey. She hesitated for a moment, and took it.

“ _I_ don’t want to kiss you, you know,” she said, as Poe drew her forward.

But he put an arm around her shoulders as she kissed Finn, gentle and tender.

“That’s okay,” he said, and pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “I just want you to know that I want you to be happy, too. We’ll make this work, all three of us. We’re not going to leave anyone behind.”

 

 

Poe waited until late that night before he put through a holocall to the General from the Falcon’s cockpit. Rey and Finn had gone to bed, though not before extracting a promise that Poe wouldn’t stay up too late. And he wouldn’t. But he did need to report in, and there was something he needed to settle.

“You told them where I was,” he said, soon as they’d finished their routine greetings. “You sent Finn and Rey after me.”

The General’s face gave nothing away. “Yes. And?”

Poe struggled with working out what to say. “I didn’t want them to find me.”

“It’s a mission, Poe, not a getaway. If I want to send backup, I will. I’m not obliged to keep your location secret from _other soldiers_ , not unless there’s critical reason.”

Poe relaxed, his shoulders dropping. “Okay. Yeah. I guess I just wondered if you were… meddling.”

“You think I’d send three good troops halfway across the galaxy to try to fix your personal life?”

“No!” Poe held up his hands. “The Resistance is too important for that!”

“And I’d never forget it.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. Sorry, sir,” Poe said, chastened. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

“Sometimes good leadership means questioning things. And you’re leading a team again, now,” she said, with a wry smile. “But the Resistance is also too important, and our members too few, not to look after the wellbeing of the people I do have.”

Poe swallowed. “I guess you could say that.”

“So when I can make the needs of the war align with the needs of the people fighting it…” she looked away slightly, and shrugged. “Well, I try.”

“You’re _really_ good at this,” Poe blurted out.

“Oh, am I?” Her voice was bland, measured, but the way she raised her eyebrow just slightly was enough to make his skin prickle with just how well she saw through him.

After a moment, she said, “Poe, I’m guessing this silence is because things are going well, but if they’re not - if you want a different support crew - I can arrange that. I can’t always give our people everything, but you can always tell me what you need.”

Poe thought about Finn and Rey, holding his hands, and shyly imploring him not to take _too_ long to come to bed tonight.

“Thank you, General. I appreciate it. But no, I have everything I need.”


End file.
